"I'm excited to be coming to Zhuhai," said American Stephens. "Qualifying for an elite year-end event is a great reward at the end of what has been an incredible year for me. I can't wait to compete hard against those other great players and try and end this season on a high."

Stephens had an extraordinary comeback by lifting the trophy at Flushing Meadows last month in an all-American final against Madison Keys, after spending the early part of the 2017 season with her foot in a cast following surgery.

Stephens only returned to the WTA Tour in July, and this would mark her first time for a season-ending tournament.

Tournament Director Jose-Miguel Garcia said: "Sloane's fairytale US Open captured the world's imagination and qualifying for Zhuhai is another recognition of her amazing achievement.

"Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has such a great week in Hong Kong so she is finishing the year strongly. Elena and Anastasija have both had outstanding seasons too. We're thrilled that these four incredibly talented players are coming to Zhuhai." "

DONGGUAN， China， Nov. 18 (Xinhua) - Guangdong led the game all the way to beat Xinjiang 117-85， ending the visitor's seven-game unbeaten run in Chinese Basketball Association(CBA) league here on Friday.

Darius Adams finished a game-high 32 points for Xinjiang， but Donald Sloan， Yi Jianlian and Zhou Peng combined 66 points to gift the home side an easy victory.

Guangdong started with a 10-2 run and led 26-15 by the first quarter. Yi and Sloan were unstoppable in the second quarter as Guangdong went to the half-time break 58-45.

Guangdong dominated the second half and gave Xinjiang no chance as they increased the margin to 32 points and clinch the victory. Enditem " MEXICO CITY, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) Few companies have received as much attention in recent weeks as Oxitec http://www.bostonbruinsteamstore.com/adidas-tim-schaller-jersey , a British biotechnology company that breeds genetically modified (GM) insects to combat the spread of diseases such as dengue and the Zika virus.

Oxitec releases GM male mosquitoes with a self-limiting gene, essentially rendering them sterile and causing any offspring to die before they reach adulthood.

In trials around the world, including the Brazilian city of Piracicaba, Oxitec claims to have wiped out over 90 percent of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

Hadyn Parry, CEO of Oxitec, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that "our mosquitoes do not impact the disease; we just reduce the number of mosquitoes. You get Zika, dengue or chikungunya by being bitten by a mosquito carrying that disease. No mosquito means no disease, less mosquitoes means less disease http://www.bostonbruinsteamstore.com/adidas-sean-kuraly-jersey ," he said.

Both the United States and Brazil confirmed that the Zika virus had been propagated by sexual transmission and blood transfusion.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Zika virus only remains in the bloodstream for a few weeks, meaning that eradicating mosquito populations would remove the threat of other types of transmission.

Despite this seemingly positive impact, the rollout of Oxitec's GM mosquitoes in Latin America to date has been limited. The city of Piracicaba, in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo http://www.bostonbruinsteamstore.com/adidas-ryan-spooner-jersey , which saw a trial release of Oxitec's mosquitoes in 2015, is expanding the project to cover about 60,000 people.

According to statistics provided by Oxitec, the city saw 133 cases of dengue in 2014 and the beginning of 2015. This was cut down to just one for the rest of 2015 after the Oxitec trial began.

However, the release of further Oxitec GM mosquitoes across the country faces a major obstacle. While Brazil's regulator for GM organisms has stated Oxitec's product poses no risk http://www.bostonbruinsteamstore.com/adidas-riley-nash-jersey , final approval is needed by the Ministry of Health before commercialization can begin.

"But to market and sell our product, we need an authorization from the Ministry of Health. We think we are very close to getting that authorization," said Parry.

That decision would not just impact Oxitec's operations in Brazil but would determine if and when its GM mosquitoes could be released in other countries.

"Once Brazil approves us, I do not think we will see a similar time frame in other Latin American countries," the executive said. "This mosquito is the same species all around the world http://www.bostonbruinsteamstore.com/adidas-ray-bourque-jersey , our product is exactly the same, and a lot of Latin American cities are very similar."

However, should a country decide that certain differentiating factors warrant extra processes, Oxitec said it will be happy to carry out extra studies.

Parry said many countries and private companies are collaborating to develop a vaccine but such a solution may be slow.

A final hurdle for Oxitec has been the controversies that have grown around their methods. A cursory search on the Internet turns up a number of articles, questioning or outright blaming Oxitec and its GM mosquitoes.